Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Greetings, and welcome

Our new space in the “blogosphere”.

Hosted by the White Ribbon Campaign in Canada, we hope this space will become an online home for people around the world who are committed to eliminating men’s violence against women to gather, share resources, update on activities, and build our international networking capacities.

As you may be aware, the White Ribbon symbolizes a man’s pledge to never commit, condone, or remain silent about violence against women. What began as an awareness week is now a year round effort, with campaigns in over 52 countries around the world. Over the past 15 years we have discovered countless other organizations and individuals who are also committed to this effort. We welcome any and every effort to work towards a future with no violence against women.

We will be updating this blog several times a week, and we invite you to send us your thoughts, activities, events, links, ideas, research – you name it. We also hope to solicit articles and commentary from the leading thinkers and writers on this subject from around the world.

We have started with some posts from the international travels of one of our co-founders, Michael Kaufman, and an article we worked on in partnership with women’s organizations in Toronto responding to a recent “school” shooting in Montreal. Please bookmark the site, and engage us with your thoughts. We always welcome feedback, and hope this is the beginning of a truly global discourse on the work to end men’s violence against women.

In solidarity,
Todd Minerson, Executive Director

White Ribbon Campaign

3 comments:

Alice Lillie said...

Great. I certainly agree that there must be an end to violence against women.

But for that there needs to be an end to violence period.

And, for that there needs to be individual self-responsibility. The key word is *INDIVIDUAL.*

Individuals act. Groups don't; when you hear that a group is acting it is actually the individuals in it that act. And it is essential that individuals act responsibly.

People who perpetrate violence against other people are not acting responsibly; in fact they are acting criminally. The only valid reason to hit someone is in self-defense.

And, someone against whom violence is being perpetrated has every right to defend herself or himself. After all it is her (or his) life. She owns that life. She has the right to defend it in whatever way that is necessary to fend off violence.

The bottom line is taking responsibility for yourself. You have a free will. Therefore you are responsible.

See my own blog at http://www.alicelillieandher.blogspot.com

Donald D. Bement said...

Hello Alice,
For self defence to be a valid reason to hit, three things must be considered: -
1. the force used must be reasonably to prevent attack.
2. you must have a genuine fear that you are going to be attacked and
3. you have no way of escaping the attack.
If those three did not exist, you can still be prosecuted in the courts for your assault and battery.

Anonymous said...

Brim over I agree but I about the post should have more info then it has.